Tuesday, April 21, 2009

The Dream with Roy and H.G.

If ever you were curious about the affinity Aussies have with bullsh*tting you need look no further than radio and TV personalities "Rampaging" Roy Slaven and H.G. Nelson.

Roy & H.G. fancy themselves sports pundits, so when Sydney hosted the Olympics in 2000 most of Australia tuned in to The Dream, a late night recap of the day's highlights and behind the scenes goings on. If the games during the day were the show, then these two lovable larrikins were the after show party.

Lets look at a sample of the typical studio banter, in this instance dealing with the friendly rivalry between Australia and New Zealand.(NOTE: A running gag throughout the course of The Dream's Olympics coverage was to parody the media's overuse of the word "tilt" - as used to describe a team or country's sporting effort - by using and abusing the term as often as possible.)

For the gymnastics commentary the lads created their own lingo for the moves on display, which enhanced the entertainment value of the sport tenfold. After viewing this you'll never be lost for what to call gymnastics moves ever again.

And to bring it home, who could forget Eric "The Eel" Moussambani, the 100m freestyle swimmer from Equatorial Guinnea who was immortalised when having to run his heat solo following the disqualification of his competitors? Poor Eric had trained long and hard for the Equatorial Guinnean tilt in a 20m hotel swimming pool. And it showed. Go Eric!